


grief

by orphan_account



Series: Fill the Void [27]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, YDYD AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23560798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the death and burial of Lindsay due to the unfortunate encounter with a zombie, Jeremy and Gavin were the ones to watch as Michael planted a tree. A young sapling only two feet high. Its trunk as thin and vulnerable as they were in this strange new land.“You should call it the life tree,” Gavin suggested. “Because, you know, you’re like planting it above our house. A place of life and everything.”“No,” Michael said, sounding a bit defeated. “That sounds dumb.”--In the wake of Lindsay's death, Michael tries to move on.
Relationships: Gavin Free/Michael Jones, Lindsay Tuggey Jones/Michael Jones
Series: Fill the Void [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663750
Kudos: 17





	grief

After the death and burial of Lindsay due to the unfortunate encounter with a zombie, Jeremy and Gavin were the ones to watch as Michael planted a tree. A young sapling only two feet high. Its trunk as thin and vulnerable as they were in this strange new land.

“You should call it the life tree,” Gavin suggested. “Because, you know, you’re like planting it above our house. A place of life and everything.”

“No,” Michael said, sounding a bit defeated. “That sounds dumb.”

“Then what would you like to call it?” Jeremy asked.

“The wife tree,” he said as he piled the dirt up around its base.

“How apt,” Jeremy said.

Once Michael clapped his hands of the dirt and stood up, he moved to gather a bucket of water and watered the poor sapling. Hopefully, under Jack’s supervision, the tree would actually flourish. Then he began to wander the surrounding fields of their house. There they found Trevor doing a curious thing with a shovel where the shade of the hill they’d claimed as their own rarely left.

“What are you doing, Trevor?” Gavin asked.

“Oh, just, uh, just some practicality stuff, you know?”

“Like …”

“Oh, like a graveyard.” He shrugged. “You know, just in case one of us just bites the big one like Lindsay.” He slammed the mouth of the shovel into the compact dirt again.

Michael sighed and moved away. Gavin soon after followed, and Jeremy for a moment stayed back to watch Trevor. They were all shaken up after Lindsay’s death. He guessed this was just a way to keep himself busy but in a rather morbid fashion.

He caught up to Gavin and Michael.

“Going out into the jungle, Geoff,” Michael said as he searched through their chests to collect some gear and some food before matching off past Jack’s garden beds.

“Mmhm.” Was Geoff’s reply.

The homestead was still in a somber mood since Lindsay’s death. So everyone gave the trio little regard as they forged into the woods at Michael’s lead.

They were trying to care for him, Gavin and Jeremy. They were the closest to him since Lindsay’s death and they didn’t want to see him just walk into a cave full of monsters .They were trying to keep him from plunging over the edge, being with him without being overbearing. They didn’t want him to rush off into the forests never to be seen again. Jeremy honestly thought that the only reason why Michael didn’t do something more drastic was because of Gavin. They had a deep bond. At one time it was between the three of them. Michael loved his friends, but he _loved_ Gavin and Lindsay. The both of them. While it seemed like he wasn’t particularly upset over Lindsay’s death, it was really just how he was coping at the moment. No tears, no great heaving sobs, no cursing the sky. No. Just quiet acceptance and the planting of a tree before heading off into the woods for some time.

Sometime turned into two days.

It seemed like Michael’s mood was improving. Gavin and Jeremy were doing their best to bolster his mood so they could return home and not have Michael be haunted by Lindsay’s grave or by the newly named Wife Tree.

Gavin was the jokester for them. Performing tricks and completing simple stunts all to have Michael engage him, laugh at him, at least do something other than sit in total melancholy. It worked. With Gavin, it seemed like Michael was finally becoming more like himself, finally achieving a sense of peace that had been lost since Lindsay. Finally regained a piece of himself.

“Gavin,” he said. “What are you _doing_ up there?” He was looking up a tree that Gavin had climbed up into, scampering up the branches with ease as he ascended into the crown.

“Wanna see where we are,” he said. “Don’t want to lose the house, you know? Make sure we know how to get back.”

“You’re gonna fall and who’s going to catch you? Get down from there.”

“Make me.”

So Michael stabbed his sword into the ground and began to climb up after him. Jeremy watched from a slight rise in the landscape, watching as Michael climbed up after him, constantly berating him for going up here in the first place.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said as he broke through above the leaves to see what Gavin was looking at.

Gavin was smiling, crowned in sunlight, hair ruffled by the wind. He looked like a saint, like a gift. Michael decided to look at what Gavin was so intrigued about up her and the view was breathtaking.

There was a river cutting between the vast forests they were in. Crystalline in its proportions, glinting like diamond in the sun, its current was fast but not to a dangerous, frothing degree. No, like Michael could be swept within it and carried away to greener pastures. Like it would care for him.

They could see the direction in which they needed to go from here, where the forests gave way to valleys and plain, flat grasslands. Perhaps it was time to return to the homestead.

“Come on,” Michael said. “We should get down before a branch breaks.”

“Oh, please, Michael,” Gavin said. “Let’s just stay up here for a while longer. It’s so nice out.”

Michael huffed, but he didn’t persuade Gavin further.

The arrow struck with surprising speed. It only struck Gavin on the shoulder, but the force of which was enough to send him stumbling back, eyes wide, breath caught in his lungs from the shock of it. He fell from the tree. Michael could only watch as he disappeared through the leaves and landed a moment later with a heavy thud. Birds flew from the tree tops.

At first, he didn’t believe what he was seeing. It was all too soon. After the death of Lindsay, he didn’t think he’d lose another so quickly.

He looked across the river for the culprit and saw a familiar plaid kilt before the person disappeared into the treeline across the river. He was too far to see Ryan’s shocked face before he fled.

He climbed down slowly, making sure not to slip. It would’ve been so easy just to let go and see what would happen, but then who would be left to honor Gavin in the way that he was mean to?

Jeremy was already at his side by the time Michael landed lightly on his feet. “He’s dead,” he said, looking to Michael to gage his reaction.

“I know. I think I saw Ryan across the river.”

“Ryan?” Jeremy said. “Why would he do this?”

Michael shrugged. “Why does he do anything?” He turned his back on the body and sat down. Jeremy came to sit by him.

“I’m here for you, Michael,” he said.

“I know.”

They sat together for a long time, listening to the nearby rushing water, to the birds in the trees. Sat and listened. Living in silence.


End file.
